The Great UFO Cover Up? : Berwyn Mountains, Wales, Jan 1974

It is a case that very few people outside the UK (even inside it) are aware of. Now I need to complain why "[don't do that on ATS]" has suddenly
been added where the word road block should be in the opening posts.

The Prescott story would back up the story from the four men who were moved on by soldiers, only the Prescott story was a few days earlier. It must be
a time warp thing or more bad researching and bad reporting again. If the Prescott story is true, I have to wonder how he knows the "creatures" were
put into decontamination suits, they might have been suits they travel in. If he and the other soldiers were put on standby to be ready to travel on
the 18th that would suggest things were already happening then.

If you're a good driver and know which roads to take, you could get from the army base on the Kent/Sussex boarder to London in two hours. I can only
guess at the rest, there would have been a motorway from London to Birmingham. My wild guess is that it would take about ten to twelve hours to get
from the South coast of England to North Wales but I could be wrong.

I don't know anything about how the army works but I imagine if something really big is going on they would bring in help from other areas. This
might also explain how the police from another area were there so fast, they must have been there already.

I noticed in your link that Andy Roberts and David Clarke wrote a book where they claim the MOD let them view the UFO reports and claimed the UFOs
were bolides/meteors. Interesting that in the link I posted to a David Clarke article, it said the meteor shower was earlier in the year and authors
Tim Good and Nick Redfern have claimed that Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire is the real HQ for the British Government’s UFO taskforce, not the UFO desk in
Whitehall.

There are a number of others sources on the Prescott story although it seems the only original source is the now deceased Tony Dodd.

Yes the dates look wrong and I am highly suspicious of this part of the story having any grain of truth. However there is another little snippet (if
the story has any truth at all) from a different source which says Prescott sped towards North Wales but his truck was halted on the outskirts of
Chester (I'd sure like to know where!).

.....The team then received orders to proceed with speed towards North Wales, but were halted on the outskirts of the English city of Chester, in
readiness for a military exercise they were told was about to take place in the area. Not long after, the orders changed yet again: make your way to
the town of Llangollen, North-East Wales. On arrival at Llangollen, recalled Prescott, the unit noticed a great deal of ground-based activity in the
area. In addition, military aircraft were soaring across the darkened, mountainous Welsh skies.

I am not sure why he was heading to Chester as it's further north than the Bala/Berwyn area ? Although again I am not sure what the road network was
like back in 1974? Maybe it was simply a stop off planned in Cheshire then head East once things became clearer. Or were the military expecting
something closer to the coast (along the A55 or the old coast roads)? That would fit in to some extent with the "Photoflash" operation. That's of
course if any of those stories have any ring of truth about them.

But there again, even if you follow Andy Roberts' sceptical story it does mention a Huw Thomas as the 14 year old farmboy who accompanied police in
his father's landrover into the mountains. His actual name is Huw Lloyd (always was) and he can be seen in the video posted earlier by Jason Ireeve
about 4 or 5 minutes in.

There may be some new documents in the UFO files being released, but I doubt they'll add much to the story.

The documents I've seen suggest the whole Berwyn Mountain UFO crash was a combination of meteors/fireballs, a small earthquake, a search and rescue
operation launched because of calls suggesting an aircraft had crashed, rumour, hysteria and the overactive imagination of certain UFO enthusiasts.

I'd line to know if he is aware of the vanishing MCA document on "Operation Photoflash" and the Phantom Helicopter sightings around the same time?

Maybe it is over active imaginations and looking for something that isn't there?

But there are a number of loose ends and suggestions of something more to this case that have yet to be resolved.

They were told to make their way towards Birmingham, so they didn't know where they were going.
They were ready for a military exercise in the Chester area, so that must have been the original plan. Yes, that could have been connected to
photoflash and that document could have been just part of the cover story.
The orders changed and they were sent to Llangollen where there was a lot of ground and air activity, maybe that's why they didn't fly the bodies
down to Wiltshire because the air crews were all needed in Wales.
Then they were sent on to Llandderfel where they picked up the two large oblong boxes. I thought it was odd that they were told " not to stop for
any civilians" before they picked up the boxes.
This is starting to look a bit more real and it's made me see the flaws in the story from the four men who said they saw the aliens, but some very
strange things happen around UFO sightings. It could be that the locals weren't paying attention in the days before the explosion.

I noticed that quote from Nick Pope in one of your links, I thought " rumour, hysteria and the overactive imagination of certain UFO enthusiasts."
was a bit insulting but who was he talking about ? I'm not buying meteors and fireballs.
It can't hurt to ask him about this case but he probably didn't know what the military were doing, but if you don't ask we'll never know.

I've done a bit more digging on the more speculative elements of this case. According to other forums on the Berwyn story and speculation varies.The general
story of lights on the slopes of the mountain range and earth tremors prevails throughout most.This remains the core part of the story along with the
(sometimes varied) tales from Pat Evans and other witnesses.

However on one or two forums there are quite substantial details (but little actual evidence) that fill out the more exotic stories involving the
military and/or the UFOs. Some involve the testing of an EM pulse type weapon causing the strange lights and the tremor (and even further tremors in
the UK years later).

Others hint that a UFO was tracked entering UK airspace and two RAF interceptors were scrambled. One of the fighters supposedly fired two missiles
that hit the UFO. On the road that Pat Evans took (I believe this was the B4391) another unnamed witness is said to have abandoned their vehicle after
a strange mist engulfed it and the engine stopped running.

Expanding on the US/UK Naval group story it seems there was a "science vessel" in the Irish Sea/Liverpool Bay area equipped to recover satellites from
the sea. This was protected by naval escorts and they were actively seeking out the USOs in the Irish Sea. One of the USOs was hit by depth charges
and surfaced eventually coming down in the Berwyn area. Then either the craft was repaired with assistance from a UFO coming in across the south of
Britain, or the occupants were captured and rushed to Porton Down.

Not that I have been able to substantiate any of this with an actual witness or official records so far. I am not going to cite sources in this case
as the stories amount to little more than gossip.There are still a few other odd things that happened afterwards out in the Irish Sea that I am still
to look into.

Who knows maybe I'll find it was all down to a weather balloon, swamp gas or even a lighthouse?

I think I might have an explanation for Nick Pope's attitude towards this case and I very much doubt he's likely to speak openly, as yet, about it.
There are, in the area, a couple of top secret bunkers that were built some time , probably in the 1930s where, some of the nation's treasures were
stashed in times of crisis, ie World War II. When this incident happened they were, in all probability still being used, for various purposes and as
such might well have contained highly confidential data and the such like. I suspect and understandably given the times we were in back then, they
simply didn't want armies of the great unwashed blundering around in that area in case they happened upon something they were not meant to. Also,
given cold war paranoia, it would also have been a prime opportunity for any Warsaw Pact, or otherwise, agents to use it as an excuse the have a good
root around up there.

It might also explain the presence of troops in the area that "seemed to come from nowhere", given there was, in all probability, small detachments
of security troops posted in the area, to keep a weather eye out on the facilities. An earth tremor could well have seen them deployed to check the
status of the various sites under their aegis to make sure entrances and the like weren't blocked. I also suspect there were there to keep an eye on
the Lake Bala reservoir which was and still is, the main supply to the then, industrial heartland of the country, Birmingham and much of the West
Midlands.

All in all, this was, at the time, a pretty sensitive area and one the MOD was not prone to wanting attention drawn to. i was present at a couple of
festivals in the area in the early 1980s and on a couple of occasions people were a tad mystified as to what MOD police were doing in such a desolate
and on the surface, a very "boring" bit of the country. Doubly so, as we could find nothing on the ordinance maps to suggest there was any MOD land
in the area. I remember also that, they were a tad miffed that they were spotted as MOD police they were definitely trying to give an impression they
were "locals", unfortunately for them, people at Festivals were pretty on the ball about the various badges and uniforms so spotted them pretty
quickly.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. There are, if you check the records, statistically clusters of UFO reports from parts of Britain you might
imagine, at first glance, were totally mundane and almost if anything, devoid of anything interesting or many people. Truth is, several of these sites
are places where there were, or still are, hidden facilities, not all military however, often with a strategic importance. Places where, a large civil
engineering project away from large population centres could well have hidden something slightly more clandestine in nature, being built concurrently.

In the .light of all this, there is a distinct possibility that, there was a whole sub plot to the Berwyn incident that, even today, is not for
"public consumption".

Yes it is easy to take the incident out of the context of the day. Early 1974 was a time of severe political, economic and social problems in Britain.
These were days of the 3 day week, states of emergency across the Irish Sea in Ulster and IRA bombings on the mainland. Added to all that were the
fears that communists were everywhere and plots for a military coup have since been revealed.

Even if the latter came to nothing some far right elements within the establishment and the military genuinely believed Britain was becoming a
communist state, or worse still anarchy was breaking out and it seems a number of other military manoeuvres were taking place with this in mind (and
apparently unknown to the PM). These were also times when aircraft hijackings and other terrorism around the world (e.g the 72 Olympics) were going
on. The nuclear power plant at Trawsfynydd is around 15 miles to the east of Bala and this would be a major concern if an aircraft, meteorite or UFO
had crashed in the area or a suspected terrorist attack was being launched.

Secret facilities are now much better signposted

What I am suspecting now is that the Berwyn UFO was actually the sub-plot to a much more complex situation that is still not for public
consumption. Possibly for good reason?

Originally posted by ImpactoR
I;ve gone through the documentary and I can say it brings really nothing, I don't see any piece of evidence here at all, no wonder it is so worldly
unknown case.

Mainstream UK TV channels will rarely deal with any speculation regarding UFOs and will always prefer the sceptics. As I said in a post (which is
about the same documentary by Firefly and shown on Channel 5 in the UK) on page 1.

It fails to mention the more speculative theories but gives a good general idea of the area with some archive footage as well.

So I am not disagreeing with your conclusion based on watching that documentary as it leaves out any of the weirder sides of the story. Scott Felton
offered a lot of material but this was all dropped despite the fact that the police officer Elfed Roberts confirms he was searching Cader Bronwen in
person on this documentary. The officially accepted nothing really happened story (by Andy Roberts www.uk-ufo.org...) has the
police placed miles away on Cader Berwyn to neatly explain the lights seen by Pat Evans. He again uses untruths to misrepresent a witness Huw Lloyd as
Huw Thomas and has had over a decade to correct things. So who are we to believe here?

Personally I am still highly doubtful a UFO crash retrieval operation involving aliens could have taken place (especially by road from the mountain
range). However it seems the real story here may come from the events that surround this incident. The Naval operation "Photoflash", the phantom
choppers and the tense political situation of the times point to something secretive going on in the North West corner of mainland Britain.

The UFO story could be a smokescreen used to disguise something else totally unrelated.

You forgot to tie the dummies onto that weather balloon, we can't have bodies without dummies.

The car breaking down fits with a lot of UFO cases but in this case it sort of fits in with the soldiers radios not working. You came across some good
ideas on the other forums, it's a shame they didn't have any evidence.

A science vessel in the Irish Sea sounds plausible, we know the US Navy had an underwater research unit in the area, although the official story for
that is, they were tracking the movements of Soviet submarines using microphones. I can believe they were actively seeking out the USOs at the same
time.

Some good information from FireMoon about the bunkers, they could have been storing or testing something there that attracted the UFOs.

I still think there was UFOs because of the other reports but I'm not sure if the explosion was in the air or on the ground. I agree with you about
Photoflash and the phantom helicopters, I'm still unsure about the bodies.

I'd also never heard of the book *Operation Thunder Child" before tonight, I wonder if Prescott read it before he claimed to have transported the
bodies. That might explain why his dates were out by 2 or 3 days.

Have you read that book, Operation Thunder Child ?
I'm interested to know if there was a description of the aliens, did the book say the aliens came in space suits or were placed into decontamination
suits ?

I know the book is sci-fi and we don't know if the alien story in this case is true, but it sounds like this could be where Nick got some of his
ideas from.

Mirageman
Did you know there is a Sunderland in North West England ? It's just north of Fleetwood.

Gloves off here. I am of opinion that, if Andy Roberts sticks his nose in and tries to make out he is the "font of all knowledge" on a particular
case, it's probably more than just secret ops or misidentified lights in the sky.

I saw the fireball myself that night. It was an incredibly bright one. it actually lit the whole sky up through fairly heavy and dense cloud cover. It
was travelling from South South East to Nor Nor West when I saw it and that would indeed put it on course for the area of Berwyn. It's also
perfectly possible that, the "quake" was the object destroying itself in an airburst and that, it was the shock wave that registered on the seismic
detectors. Frankly, anyone with half a clue about the science involved should have already postulated this as an explanation. There is no need for an
actual contemporaneous quake at all. That one was dragged in as an explanation smacks of over egging the cake without actually thinking about it and
taking the obvious into consideration.

In fact, if it was a genuine quake then why hasn't anyone just stated the obvious? That the mysterious lights were plasma caused by piezzo effect of
the rocks moving against each other. There was no need to over elaborate at all and yet, Roberts has done so. That means he's either, just not very
intelligent at all, or he's working an agenda that goes deeper than just debunking the sighting.

I'm conflicted about this sighting for the following reasons. the obvious answers simply haven;t been trotted out and that usually means there's
something being hidden. my suspicion is this. That there was, for weeks before the incident, a bunch of "unknowns" tracked and some attempted
interceptions over the Welsh Marches and that, the fireball incident triggered the major alert klaxon whereby, they swung into action wrongly assuming
they'd finally bagged their quarry.

At the same time, a genuine unknown was indeed nosing around the Berwyn area, quite possibly drawn to the fireball to check it out for themselves. I
suspect the unknown then possibly "landed" assuming , being the middle of nowhere, meant they wouldn't be seen. I don't think there was any crash,
any interception, I suspect that it just so happens, a goodly number of credible people saw that unknown and were of a mind it was not controlled by
an human intelligence and yet, was indeed, under intelligent control. Enter Roberts and his agenda, which seems to be, any sighting involving
multiple witnesses has to be debunked.

Very interesting topic a story from a Reginald DePinter who's grandfather was an eye witness

This must be the same story that was told over and over again by my grandparents.
"Apparently some time in January of 1974, my uncle, who was the choir master in the local church had just locked the church doors having completed a
choir practice. He and my uncle’s friend Devon were walking home along the road when they felt the ground shaking under them. They laughed but were
a little frightened by the earthquake then suddenly they saw bright lights in the sky followed by a terribly loud bang. They were convinced they had
just witnessed an aircraft crash and because the crash scene was only a short distance away, they ran quickly to the spot. They said what they saw
looked like plane wreckage but the craft was obviously circular in shape because the ground was still ablaze in a round shape. Then they spotted two
very small dark figures speedily rushing away to disappear into the adjoining forest. They hurried home and phoned the local police who came promptly
and listened to their account of what they witnessed. This was followed by Royal Air Force investigators who seemed more interested in the small
runaways from the crash than they were with anything else. Both my uncle Neville and his pal Devon swore by what they saw, but the RAF boys seemed
very incredulous and even though both of them were quizzed again and again, several times, nobody in authority really believed their story. However,
to their dying days, both men stuck by what they knew they observed and their story never wavered"

Mirageman
Did you know there is a Sunderland in North West England ? It's just north of Fleetwood.

I didn't know that. However (and I did have to read it again to check the original
FSR report) the reports
did confirm that the UFO seen around the same time was over Sunderland, Co. Durham.

I did ask Nick Pope the question about this case, but haven't seen a reply as yet. In fact he hasn't really said anything I didn't already know.
Maybe as Firemoon says he really can't say anything about it.

Respect your opinions as always, Firemoon, and your love of Roberts and his sidekick Clarke!

Nice theory and I can't discount it. I suspect, as Scott Felton does, that something was going on for a while before and being monitored by the
military. The skies over the Rivers Mersey and Ribble have also been labelled UFO hotspots down the years. So if I'm speculating then I think maybe
the real action was going on out in the Irish Sea and that Berwyn may well have been only a small and unexpected part of the story.

Originally posted by dashdespatch
Very interesting topic a story from a Reginald DePinter who's grandfather was an eye witness

This must be the same story that was told over and over again by my grandparents.
"Apparently some time in January of 1974, my uncle, who was the choir master in the local church had just locked the church doors having completed a
choir practice. He and my uncle’s friend Devon were walking home along the road when they felt the ground shaking under them. They laughed but were
a little frightened by the earthquake then suddenly they saw bright lights in the sky followed by a terribly loud bang. They were convinced they had
just witnessed an aircraft crash and because the crash scene was only a short distance away, they ran quickly to the spot. They said what they saw
looked like plane wreckage but the craft was obviously circular in shape because the ground was still ablaze in a round shape. Then they spotted two
very small dark figures speedily rushing away to disappear into the adjoining forest. They hurried home and phoned the local police who came promptly
and listened to their account of what they witnessed. This was followed by Royal Air Force investigators who seemed more interested in the small
runaways from the crash than they were with anything else. Both my uncle Neville and his pal Devon swore by what they saw, but the RAF boys seemed
very incredulous and even though both of them were quizzed again and again, several times, nobody in authority really believed their story. However,
to their dying days, both men stuck by what they knew they observed and their story never wavered"

Thanks for sharing that story. If it's linked to Berwyn then it sounds similar to the story Russ Kellet is quoting with "unnamed" witnesses of
aliens on the ground. Without dates, times and places though we can only guess.

The Maritime Coastguard document is a strange and intriguing part of the case. Now it may well be a wild goose chase but it keeps nagging at me
because of the below :

If you refer to the earlier part of this thread there is a tiny (but illegible) copy of this document
(click here to view it) which originally appeared with the story from the
North Wales edition of the Liverpool Daily Post in 2010. It has since vanished despite the original story still being present on the website.

The MoD also released a reply to a private individual again requesting information about the Photoflash Operation
(see this post). Whilst it didn't confirm it they left it open to
interpretation and did not deny the exercise took place.

This is all circumstantial of course. But look at the original report document by the Geological Survey team :
(click here to download or view) produced after the investigation in 1974.

This quite clearly states

......Liverpool Daily Post 25 Jan 1974 p1). It was now further suggested that many people, especially in the Isle of Man, had actually seen
an RAF photo-flash night bombing exercise. It was also noted 4 that many of the light phenomena were reported after the tremor
(Liverpool Daily Post 25 Jan 1974 p1).

Sadly Nick Pope seems to have failed (unless I missed the answer) to see my question to him about this case (or chose to ignore it) in his
AMA thread. He also ignored a question about a UFO case in Widnes 1996 where a railway
sleeper was allegedly hit by a beam from a UFO and the police reported it was still smouldering after investigation.

In both questions I referred back to the documents the MoD had released and asked for his comments. I didn't see a response. This is despite these
being the very documents he should have had some familiarity with during his tenure at the MoD desk. Granted neither happened on "his watch". But he
did choose to actively promote the release of these UFO documents in recent years. Make of that what you will.

Anyway - the MCA Document could be a fake, although if so it is uncertain who the source may have been.

However the fact that this "Photoflash" was being reported just days after the incident and the subsequent disappearance and denial that the MCA
document can now be found all points to the suspicion that the answer to the question raised in the opening title of this post "Great UFO Cover Up?"
may well be "Yes".

However I urge you to make your own mind up and feel free to post your own thoughts on this case as others have done.

Thanks for telling us your uncles story, I'm a bit puzzled that your grandparents put the tremor before the explosion. Is there anyone in your family
you could ask about this who might have got the story straight from your uncle ?

It might help us to know where the church is and what time your uncle would have finished choir practise. It seems a bit odd that nobody in authority
believed their story if there was a crashed UFO there

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